Ana De Portela

it was an innocent sunday, he decided to meet his partner   at home depot  after picking up some wine for dinner.He stayed downstairs,  his penchant for street    meat  kept him close to the bathroom. She perused fixtures on the second floor.From his bathroom stall he noticed the same shoes and pants from  below, whispering and mumbling, he couldn’t quite make it out, a suspicious, strange code. he felt very weak and tired and waited for her upstairs, leaning against  a pole for support.He held her very large purse that carried the wine.  Very  friendly salesmen kept approaching him” We are getting ready to close sir anything -I can help you with? ” They smiled with earnest intent at his broad chest ,and shoulders and for a moment he felt proud, he arched his back and when no one was watching he looked down at his chest  and then immediately slumped over in defeat. He would never  ever EVER,wear his Willy Wonka Chocolate factory  t-shirt to Home Depot ,ever again.

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this is what happens when you download  four thousand dollars worth of itunes and  three thousand dollars in fortune teller readings on your ex  boyfriends card over the span of a year plus,

Consider this, at ninetynine cents   a song, twelve songs four or five times a day,  so think about it

over the course of one year, a typical day( according to bank records,apple and detective work) a typical day in the life

  she woke up got on the computer ,downloaded  archives of albums,  called a tarot reader for a daily reading and then  calls another reader to compare with the first, now repeat this five or six times, thats hours , what would normally be a full time job, but she made a full time job out of trying to destroy other peoples lives, her neighbors, shopkeepers, it was hard for her to walk down the stairs, or down the street without a sideway stare, maybe someday she’ll  fess up andpay up to prove

she really cares.

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Ever since  KFC broughts us rodents on video,there has been a rash of closings. I was just at the post office purchasing my new Jamestown stamps and thought I would stop in for a Vietnamese Ice Coffee at Kelly Ping. Imagine my surprise to find four yellow posters plastered on the front , complliments of New York Dept of Health: This establishment has been closed for the violation of Mental and Physical health reasons ” ( or something along those lines. I took some photos with my disposable camera, a woman in a wrap dress and an accent came out screaming at me ‘ ‘What are you doing? Don’t take any pictures” We have enough problems !” I said I’m an artist, I live in the neighborhood - I’m a customer… ” she cut me off screaming louder( maybe thats what they meant by “mental health”) She said ‘ I don’t care if your a rich F….ng   SOHO artist

, I took two more pictures while she was screaming ‘ “People are losing their JOBS!” You f…g Bitch!”Now I was really upset then she  screamed”Get Out of here you F…ing dyke!”  So I took Another picture and I  thought hey lady when your place closes I’ll open up a clothing store called Dyke Gear,  or” Dumplings and Dykes”She screamed louder almost crying ‘ What are you going to do put it on UTUBE? I never thought of it, my innocent little single use camera, a slide show?

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 At 3pm she rides up  Prince st.on her bike, wearing a lowcut short slinky sun dress,and four inch  wedge platform sandals, she unpacks her cow skin rug and drapes it across the curb, She sets up her easles and displays the same drawings she she’s had for the past year, charcoal female nudes,(the kind you do your first year in Drawing 101) with a few words in French tagged across the drawings in  bold red, her journal lay open for all to see , she leans against the brick wall one leg propped,   I halfway glance at the drawings long enough to realize that there the same drawings but not too long ,halfway  not wanting to seem too interested but interested all the same

  because I think its a “gutsy sex sells   sort of thing to do” that  , she stares at me hard . She knows I know she’s a poser on prince.

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walking past Mo’s butcher shop on Elizabeth. A late model BMW  with Jersey tags,parked 

 a large breed thirty- something Lab bounded out of his car, and retrieved a grafitti covered skateboard and then he assumed a casual demeanor atop his board skating along the sidewalk across to  Cafe Habana’s , where a crowd congregates every evening to munch corn on the cob.  I spotted a guy on the bench  with a top hat , narrow black jeans and striped shirt boom box at his side.. he has his route,from avenue of the americas at La Dolce Vita  to the bowery then rounding back on prince st… this is his hangout. I wondered how many subways he took to

to sit there and smoke and say, there’s nowhere like nolita.

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The wall was freshly painted and he brushed up against it, by accident, wearing his new winter jacket.

 It was dismissed as a “Happy Accident”

One day in Chelsea he was visiting his CPA, two Frenchmen boarded the elevator after he, they looked him up and down, the two men were dressed in fine woolens and linens , ” I feel so underdressed, we are in the presence of a “Jackson Pollack” they spoke with great reverence and endearment.. Later in the East Village he stopped to get bread and sausage at the Polish Deli, A woman approached him from behind and hurried past him , then turning towards him with a scowling brow and pointing finger she waved it in his face like a loaded pistol

You!You leaned against a wall” she said in a german accent.

The next day he was hanging out with friends, his jacket draped across a chair

” Dude, Get rid of the Jacket, it’s over, Academy Surplus is having a sale, you can get a good deal all over town. 

Later on

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i asked the guy at the front desk if they had gong meditation. He said ” WhaT?”

” Gong”

 I had to repeat it three times , he got on the phone and then asked the bearded man next to him

Well- not really, nothing scheduled

then the bearded guy said , “We All teach gong, we use the gong , we have a gong, its up to the individual teaching the class to incorporate gong into their class”

There is a one in ten chance that you may attend a class and it wont be featured , there is no guarantee,

So I went back to my gym class yoga and I told  Amrita , the instructor, she gave me a free pass, she said “Try Again!”

There still getting it together”

so a couple of weeks later I went back .. it was  7:50 the door was open , there were two men at the counter, the same beat bearded guy, chewing something.. I walked up to the counter and started to ask a question

 ” He said ” We’re closed’” speaking while chewing, bits of Kitcheree falling from the corner of his mouth

  i turned about face staring up at the clock that read almost 8

not quite the warm fuzzy experience I read about golden bridge  in LA

not the moments after yoga in SA where everyone lounged around after a session drinking warm chai… I hade the same experience everytime I walked into that place, they had the wrong people at the front desk, no one smiled, no one seemed to know what was going on, no one knew what was on the website, they just referred me to fliers at the front door, maybe the honking from Center street coming off the bridge  threw them off or perhaps the hovering police building, maybe they should change the name to Broken bRIDGE Yoga.

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Just as fast as Arcade Fire could dis pat metheny he resurrected himself by the skin of the roadside with Brad Mehldau Trio

I saw the trio at the Vanguard and quickly spread the word about  my new favorite music , my fellow jazz pianist friends who are insanely jealous tried to refer me to keith Jarret..  Some People in the art world- depending on how overeducated they may be

 will insist that  Modern art started not after 1945, but with Titian,and nnothing new is being done.I just remember meeting Brad , and he was very humble, devoid of ego, even on stage with his back to the audience, he silently directed the full frontal love between Ballard on Drums and Grenadier on Bass.

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i asked  her for a  job and she just stared me down with suspicion”I am not convinced, I have loyal people in my kitchen’ no one was dining in  that day, but i did like the menu, a very high tea menu,

i  saw  two mexican guys in the kitchen  , the waitress was pale and thin and looked a little nervous The owner looked over to her and said” in five minutes I’m going to explain the dinner menu “There were a few articles on her , she was a performance artist or at least WAS , every table had a cutesy theme of frolicking figurines, this was her art form,

I pass by there from time to time and there’s always a different waitress, but the same loyal guys in the kitchen, I was in line at the bank and she was at the tellers window, doing but exercises as she waited and then i saw her at the corner deli buying green beans, she said ” I want to get some green beans , I forgot to get green beans” The owner was very sweet” would yuou like for me to get you some she yelled out to Lupe to get a carton of green beans ” No!” the Dog Lady snapped their  for my restaurant , I want to make sure there fresh!” I thought that was pretty rude first of all I’m sure they would pick out the best, and their produce was all carefully handled and just as beautiful as any I had seen at Dean and Deluca but if she was that worried why was she buying her produce at the deli in the first place?

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there are more shells in the country and the forest than I have ever seen on any beach.its colder here than anywhere I’ve ever been and I’m happy now the way I used to remember what being happy felt like.I’m beginning to understand german , the more I hear chesky. Ideas flow more freely. I can stretch, guess what time it is and not really care.

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